Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Absolutely. I would not disagree with any of that. The figures I have in front of me indicate that were 290 admissions last year, of which 89 were to adult wards. That is shocking. I have been in adult wards on a number of occasions under various guises. It is scary to be there when one is healthy and one knows one will be leaving it. However, if one is a young person who has already attempted suicide, or is close to that, and is left in that scenario where people are so scared around one that they follow and special one, that is a very distressing situation, which makes it all the more difficult for one to recover. Certainly it is something that is inappropriate.

The commitment was made in 2011 that this would not happen and every report now goes to the Mental Health Commission. We are way behind on that. One of the things I would hope we can do is reduce the number who need it. That is probably the best thing to do so that people do not get that far. Young Cait, whose name is included in the report to which I referred, was on her second suicide attempt before she ended up in a ward. What happened after her first suicide attempt? Why are we not doing something to prevent a second suicide attempt from happening? We have had complaints from a young person who had made ten or 12 suicide attempts and then was brought into a ward. What are we doing prior to that to prevent those young people having to get to a ward? Examining that area would be the best way forward. The commitment to creating extra beds is one part of it, but if we find ourselves in a situation where young people are in adult wards - that is totally unaccountable - we need to consider if a better service can be provided while they are in those wards and if the time spent in them can be reduced.

Instead of only specialing young people, we need to consider can we special them and bring them out to therapy. In that way the time spent there in such a ward would not be dead time. The time spent there now is literally lost time. If a young person of 16 years of age is in an adult ward for two months, that young person will not have recovered. All they have done is stayed alive and then they might be brought to a ward where they can be helped. Why are those two months spent in the ward now being lost? There are things that can be improved upon. It is not all about resources because the money that is spent on specialing a young person would facilitate the creating of many resources. Much work can be done and it is something on which I will focus.